Time Inc. CEO says editors are happier reporting to the business side

Last fall, new Time Inc. CEO Joe Ripp told his editors that they’d be reporting to the business side rather than to the editor-in-chief – a move that Ad Age said “sent a ripple of anxiety” through the company’s editorial offices.

Bloomberg TV asked Ripp this morning how editors are dealing with that change. “Frankly, I think they are happier,” he said.

They are more excited about it because no longer are we asking ourselves the question are we violating church and state, whatever that was. We are now asking ourselves the question are we violating the trust with our consumers? We’re never going to do that. But within the framework of that, my editors have much more freedom to think about how I can delight my consumers, how I can work with advertisers, how I can think through the problems.

Bloomberg TV: The media are analysts who follow you love to panic when they see layoffs or budget cuts.

Some people have said to me how can you talk about investing at the same time you’re talking about layoffs? And the reality is they’re two — they go hand-in-hand. Because what we’ve got to stop doing is investing in the things that go to the past and start investing in the things that go to the future.

That means sometimes we’re spending money on things we don’t need to spend on. Now I have got multiple kitchens in the city of New York. I don’t need that. We have multiple organizations cooking and developing recipes for us. We don’t need to do those things.

There’s lots of ways for us to save money on the things we are spending on so we can generate the resources to invest in our future. And that’s what we’re doing. The two actually go very well hand in hand.